West-Delhi.Pdf
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
I christened it the Eating Club. The men did what is called behas karna – debating about politics, inflation and government policies – while the women turned to sing ing. All of this happened in the street (my mother would take 45 minutes to reach my aunt’s place, barely 20 houses away, meeting and greeting everyone on the way) and the congregation entered the house only when they wanted to eat. In the early days, the mem bers put together elaborate spreads, but later it was decided that every household would limit themselves to only four dishes. Slowly the meetings started to peter out; people aged, began to fall ill, or became immobile. Some other preoccupations have also fallen off the radar. My cousin Suman Saith used to rear and fly homing pigeons. He had close to 400 birds at one time, and he knew them all by their markings. Endurance flying contests were frequent (and held at the national level), where neutral referees would be invited ANSHIKAVARMA to judge. The pigeons were sent Ridge recorder Sanjeev Saith’s off and at the end of the day, when family home is the only one of its kind they’d grow tired, they’d come left standing; (left) Saith’s photo of back to rest. The number of hours Shankar Road around 1977 they’d spent in the air was logged, and the cumulative time recorded. the area was also called Deemak Other entertainment options Nagar, because of a persistent ter were limited. My friends and I mite problem. These pests apart, would visit the Rabindra Rang there were jackals and peacocks SANJEEVSAITH shala, a large amphitheatre in the neighbourhood. Even ten in the neighbourhood, for film years ago, I’d spot the occasional screenings; I watched It’s a Mad Indian fox, and once, a Neelgai. Mad Mad World the first time here. Memory lane I studied at St Columba’s The other two cinema halls, Naaz School. In the mornings, one of and Sheila, were in Jhandewalan Photographer Sanjeev Saith, whose family was those green, snout buses would (Naaz used to be where PhotoInk come to pick me. After school, Gallery now stands). The other one of the first to settle in New Rajendra Nagar, I’d head down to old Mr Nangia (I hall we frequented was Filmistan, think that was his name)’s cycles which I passed on my way to St recalls growing up in the 1960s and ’70s. forhire shop and go around the Stephen’s College everyday in the colony – all for 25 paise. Then, bus. The actress Neena Gupta e all presume that the original houses were in blocks one birthday, my father gifted me travelled in the same bus, and area was named after of eight, and had a common a cycle, which I was supposed to would leave her long hair untied. WDr Rajendra Prasad, roof. This was when the Alstonia ride down to the school, which is That memory is inextricably linked but different people and institu outside our house was planted. at a distance of about five kilo with another one from that time. tions still spell it differently. When We still live in the original house, metres. Schools close down on The hall was close to a few butcher we got our post office (and the but sadly it is the only one left on the merest of excuses these days, shops and every morning a row of pin code 110060 to ourselves – the street. The rest have been but I rem ember I had to cycle to bakra heads stared back at me – before this, we had had to share pulled down and converted into school even in the winter. All my but Neena Gupta never did. Karol Bagh’s 5), a large board multistoried residential blocks. friends would wait for me at the Several of New Rajendra spelled it as Rajinder, and that has Rajendra Nagar is like a mini gate because my clothes would Nagar’s landmarks have disapp stuck. It is a small example of the valley, because it is surrounded by have a slender layer of ice (the eared over the years. We used to Punjabification of the area that the Ridge forest on two sides. It is result of a combination of the get milk from the gaushala down started when Partition families flanked on one side by institutions Ridge’s mist and the wind chill) the road, then later DMS booths, were settled here. such as the Ganga Ram Hospital that they wanted to poke and and now Mother Dairy outlets. The first wave of refugees set (always, “Sir Ganga Ram Hospital” break into shards. Every evening, a mithaiwala came t led in singlestorey barracks in to my parents), and by the “school In the early 1960s, when peo to your doorstep to sell sweets, Reading Road (now Mandir Marg) mile” (named for Bal Bharati, Ram ple still had time to spare and but along with the ganderi and and the peripheries of Connaught jas and Springdales schools) on everyone knew everyone else, phalsa sellers, he seems to have Place. My family moved to New the other, that stretches until Pusa the neighbours would meet over also slipped through the cracks. Rajendra Nagar in May 1951: the Road. Up until a few years ago, a long, leisurely Sunday brunch: As told to Karanjeet Kaur. 24 www.timeoutdelhi.net March 30 – April 12 2012 CS-West Delhi Final.indd 24 3/22/2012 9:35:21 PM meant a lot of travel within it, espe- cially to the galleries and muse- ums of central and south Delhi. While travelling on a motorbike to Vasant Kunj for a teaching job in 2005, Scaria would look at and observe the changing cityscape around him. “This daily commut- ing created a lot of thinking space for me,” he said. But it was the introduction of the Delhi Metro line to Rithala in 2004 that changed everything. Today, Rohini is one of the Delhi Metro’s major hubs. The residen- tial complex is interspersed with shopping malls, parks, institu- tional areas and a court complex, and has grown to more than 50 sectors. Scaria finds it difficult to imagine the past before the Metro, and says it provided him with a new artistic perspective. “On a Metro ride, you could see G another layer of the city from a completely different perspec- Studio apartment Gigi Scaria and part of his tive,” he explained. “That came ADITITAILAN installation “Someone left a horse on the shore” because of the elevated Metro track here.” ohini has no pretensions From the Rohini West Metro of being a cultural hub. Station, Scaria began photograph- ROriginally conceived by the Life on a Metro ing the construction of malls and DDA in the 1980s as a sub-city the coexistent workers’ shelters to house the capital’s teeming Gigi Scaria tells Sonam Joshi how living – a project that became his series millions, the roughly 40sq km “Site Under Construction”. He neighbourhood today consists in Rohini shapes his art. also drew inspiration from the view of endless rows of residences: overlooking the Netaji Subhash some built by the DDA, with its art world; last year, some of his horse on the shore”, he drew upon Place Metro station for his ani- patent drab architecture; and works were exhibited at India’s the myth of the Trojan horse to mated video “Amusement Park”, other slightly more imaginative first national pavilion at the create a wooden animal whose in which brightly lit, revolving structures built by the cooperative Venice Biennale. body resembles the exteriors of buildings evoke a carnival group housing societies that were Even though Scaria’s work has local apartments. Scaria subse- atmosphere. In 2011, Scaria’s allotted land here. taken him far and wide, he choses quently placed and photographed association with the Metro and Yet Rohini is also an unlikely to continue residing in Rohini, the installation in four locations experiments with placing art in muse for multimedia artist Gigi appreciating its “planned develop- around Rohini and Rithala. In this public spaces received a further Scaria, 38, who has lived here for ment and green cover” over “con- context, the installation alluded to fillip when three of his sculptural the last 13 years. Scaria, who is gested and polluted” South Delhi. urbanites conquering the hinter- installations were placed at two originally from Kerala, calls his In a quiet locality in Sector 14, his lands on the periphery of the city. stations along the Metro’s Airport work “local” in its content and house is within walking distance The identical architecture Express Line. While most people context. “You may construct a of the “Japanese Park”, though, of Rohini’s apartment blocks might notice the major landmarks completely different reality and as Scaria jokes, there is nothing has also been a motif of devel- – the Metro Walk Mall, with its make up your own world, but it aesthetically Japanese about it, opment in Scaria’s work. Vast water park, the PVR multiplexes – basically comes from the proto- it’s just that some aid from Tokyo stretches filled with newly con- in Scaria’s works, the coming type which you actually experi- contributed to its development. structed, uninhabited apartment of commercial spaces is often ence,” he told us. Initially, it was His nearby studio, the next complexes in Sector 27 – an represented by images of the the practical question of employ- sector over, is in a light green “ocean of apartments” Scaria labourers who have built them.